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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 55 | February 2002


Richard Wherrett 1940-2001

Portrait of Richard Wherrett  1993

Greg Barrett, 1943-
Portrait of Richard Wherrett 1993
photograph: silver gelatin on resin-coated paper; 37 x 29 cm
Courtesy of Greg Barrett

Richard Wherrett died at his home in Sydney on 7 December 2001, just three days short of his 61st birthday.

Perhaps Australia's most successful, controversial and outspoken theatrical director, Richard Wherrett's career spanned 40 years, during which he founded the Sydney Theatre Company, directing 127 professional theatre productions, as well as opera, film, television and festivals. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1984 for his services to theatre.

After graduating from Sydney University in 1961, Richard Wherrett became a schoolteacher, before heading to London in 1965 where he taught at the London Academy of Dramatic Art and Joan Littlewood's famous East 15 Acting School.

Returning to Australia in 1970, he worked with English director Sir Tyrone Guthrie on Oedipus Rex, directed Judy Davis and Mel Gibson in Romeo and Juliet at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and joined John Bell and Ken Horler as Co-Artistic Director of the Nimrod Theatre from 1974-1979.

In 1976 he directed the world premiere of Steve J. Spears' play The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin for the Nimrod Theatre, and three years later when it opened in New York, he won an OBIE for best direction of an off-Broadway production. In that same year, 1979, he was chosen as the Founding Director of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC), a position he held until 1991.

On leaving the STC, he became Artistic Director for the Melbourne International Festival of Arts for both 1992 and 1993. Richard Wherrett directed several operas including Summer of the Seventeenth Doll for both the Victorian State Opera (VSO) in 1996 and the Australian Opera (1999), as well as Turandot (VSO 1997) and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (VSO 1982).

Among his most notable stage productions were The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby (STC 1982), Emerald City (London 1988) Away and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (Summerfare Festival, New York 1988), Jesus Christ Superstar (Harry M. Miller & IMG 1992-94), Beauty and the Beast (Jacobsen and Edgley 1995-97), The Life of Galileo (STC 1996), Cabaret (Gordon Frost 1997), The Merchant of Venice (Bell Shakespeare Company 1999), and Shout (Jacobsen Entertainment 2001). He was scheduled to direct a revival of The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin in January 2002.

Richard Wherrett was the author of two autobiographies, Desirelines and The Floor of Heaven and the creative director for the climax of the opening ceremony for the Sydney 2000 Olympics-the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron.

Just six months before his death, Richard Wherrett recorded the second of two interviews for the National Library of Australia's Oral History Project. Hazel de Berg recorded an interview with him in 1981, then in March 2001. Bill Stephens visited him in his home in Sydney to record a second interview.

In this interview he discussed his views on directing. Although his friends and colleagues had been aware of it much earlier, his HIV status had become public knowledge in 1995, when it was revealed sensationally in a magazine article. He talked about the effects this public revelation had on his career and of how the diagnosis of his HIV status had affected his attitude to his life and his directing.

He also talked about how he had approached the task of writing his autobiographies, revealing how he decided what to put in, and what to leave out. The final section of the interview is devoted to his description of his role in the preparation and staging of the lighting of the Olympic cauldron for the opening ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and his response to the mechanical failure that threatened to destroy a great moment in sporting history.

This interview now forms part of an ever-growing archive of recordings, documenting Australia's rich cultural heritage, meticulously gathered by the National Library of Australia's Oral History branch, and stored at the Library. The Manuscript Collection also holds the personal papers of Richard Wherrett as well as a fine oil portrait of Richard by Margaret Ackland in the Pictorial Collection. Further information about these collections can be obtained by visiting the Library's web site at www.nla.gov.au.
—Bill Stephens

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